The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Thursday September 28 2006,

The "gig in Holland" mentioned in the obituary below came at the end of Pip Pyle's career rather than the start. Hatfield Heath, where he lived for some years, is in Essex; he was brought up just across the border in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire. Both his marriages ended in divorce: he leaves three daughters, a son and a stepson from the first, and a son from the second. He died on August 28 rather than August 27.

The drummer Pip Pyle, who has died aged 56, encapsulated all that was groundbreaking in British progressive music in the shakeout from the 1960s, and was associated with what is known as the Canterbury scene. His career took an innovative line, from a gig in Holland with Hatfield and the North, one of a number of pioneering bands he helped to shape in the 1970s, till his untimely death in his adopted city of Paris.

Like his collaborator and friend, guitarist Phil Miller, Pyle was brought up in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire. His talents were first noted with his band Delivery, in which Miller also played, and then, briefly, with Chicken Shack. These two were largely blues-based, but it was with Gong, a communally oriented, proto-punk jazz outfit led by Australian beatnik Daevid Allen, that Pyle really came to the fore. Later Gong albums fleshed out the sound and cosmic mythology, but the more minimalist approach of Camembert Electrique (1971) ideally suited his driving rhythms and clattering sounds.

From around 1972 Hatfield and the North reunited Pyle and Miller, but also featured Richard Sinclair, Caravan's singer and bassist, and keyboardist Dave Stewart. It was a unique blend: Pyle effortlessly followed the intricate interplay - often lightly introspective, sometimes brash - while Sinclair's plummy croonings were flecked with Pyle's dry lyrics (notably on Share It). The diverse personalities allied to difficult financial constraints (the Hatfields were critically acclaimed but terminally impoverished) contributed to a certain madcap humour: Pyle's prankish relationship with Soft Machine saxophonist Elton Dean (obituary, February 10) helped name the Hatfields' second album, The Rotters Club (1975), which inspired the book of that name.

Later in the 1970s Pyle, Stewart and Miller played together again in National Health, a band with even more extreme scoring and off-beat humour - its only Old Grey Whistle Test appearance was kicked off unannounced by a tray of cutlery being propelled across the stage by bassist John Greaves.

Meanwhile, Pyle had recorded with Soft Heap, a more considered affair, with ex-Softs Dean and Hugh Hopper, really his first venture into recognisable jazz idioms. He was ever present (also alongside Dean) in Phil Miller's splendid In Cahoots outfit from 1982 to 2001, while his own band, Equip'Out, recorded two studio albums, one being the delightfuly free Up! (1991) with Dean, Paul Rogers and then partner Sophia Domancich. Soft Heap rumbled on into the 1980s, with kindred spirits Dean, Greaves and guitarist Mark Hewins producing ever more obtuse sounds. Typically, one gig in a jail in northern France caused a mini-riot.

Pyle was by now experimenting with electronic drum pads. In 1990 he unexpectedly rejoined Gong, initially for a Central Television appearance and the recording of Shapeshifter, then permanently, when Pierre Moerlen pulled out of a 25-year-old celebratory event held over two days in London. Pyle was arguably the star of the show: a safe pair of hands amid the chaos. He became a powerhouse in subsequent Gong tours, which some aficionados saw as producing the band's finest performances.

The crowning glory was a 1998 solo album, 7 Year Itch - the title a wry nod to the record's difficult path to completion. Pyle's sleeve notes catalogue a bumpy ride both personally and musically; the music itself is less notable for its drumming than in being a testament to a fine composer, arranger and lyricist. Haunting melodies are counterbalanced elsewhere by hard funk rhythms, while lyrically the themes are often stark or angry, as Pyle alludes to the political and cultural attitudes that led him to emigrate to France in the early 1980s.

Pyle remained bemused by obsessive adulation and his unwitting appropriation into the Canterbury scene: his lyrics to Richard Sinclair's What's Rattlin quote "One question we all dread/ What's doing Mike Ratledge" (a reference to fans asking him about the Softs keyboard player, with whom he never collaborated). Yet he had a healthy rapport with his followers: a common thread on recent blogs is quite how many fans got to share time with him. He was currently working not only with the reformed Hatfields, but also with Absolute Zero and his new band, Bash.

He is survived by three daughters, a son and a stepson from his first marriage, and a son from his second.